


Little Dove

by lgbthozier



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety Attacks, Bird Watching, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nightmares, Other, cute past memories, father of the year award goes to stanley uris, genuinely good parenting, good soft stan content, literally angst shoved between fluff, lots of hugging it out, stanley is a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 10:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbthozier/pseuds/lgbthozier
Summary: A detailed look into the peaceful—and sometimes painful—life as Stanley Uris’s daughter.(aka stanley uris is the best dad ever)
Relationships: Stanley Uris & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Little Dove

**Author's Note:**

> tw: detailed depictions of sleep paralysis, anxiety, and gore/suicide sandwiched between tooth rotting fluff. please read at your own risk!

“Dad. Daddy. Papa. Pops. Poppy. Old fart—”

Stanley swiveled around in his chair to face me. “Yes, daughter?” he said, his tone just the slightest bit chastising.

“There’s a scissortail in the tree out back.” 

At this observation, he plucked the glasses from his face and crossed the room to stand next to me by the window. “Is there, now?” 

“Yeah. See it? The little red spot on the branch right there? No, look higher, there,” I emphasized by poking my finger into the glass so he could see. Stan squinted for a moment, and I looked back and forth between my dad and the bird until he finally noticed it. His eyes widened with recognition and his mouth dropped open a bit as he stared. After a moment, he gave me a tap on the shoulder. “Get your mom’s camera from the dresser, honey. Be quick.”

I slid away from the window and skidded over to my parent’s bedroom, nearly knocking into the kitchen counter as I passed it. I opened the door to see my mom lounged on her bed, a book in hand. “Looking for the camera?” she mused, a small smile adorning her kind face. She knows the drill. I hummed out an affirmation as I poked around my parent’s dresser drawer and grasped the camera, flipping the on button before rushing back to the window. My dad was still there, watching the bird outside, a curl of hair in his face, and he was so focused on the feathered creature that he hardly noticed my return. 

I pointed the lens towards the scissortail, focusing on it until I had a clear shot of the bird. I hit the shutter and waited for the satisfying click before I lowered the camera. I looked back at my dad to find him staring at me thoughtfully, an odd smile on his face. He said nothing, only continued to gaze back at me, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s up, pops?” I questioned. Stan huffed out a laugh and put an arm around me. “You’re my favorite kid.”

“I’m also your _ only _ kid.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, little dove.”

I smiled at my nickname, wrapping an arm around my dad and squeezing him a bit. “Just so you know, you’re my favorite dad.”

“I’m your only dad.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, papa.” We laughed in each other’s arms, our eyes yet again fixed upon the scissortail outside the window.

»»———————————————««

It was nearly an hour after my father received a phone call from an old friend that he tentatively knocked on my bedroom door.

“Can I ask you something, little dove?”

I made room on my bed for my dad to sit next to me. He was nervous about something, that I could tell, but I held off on asking about it. Instead, I nodded, patting the spot next to me so he would have a seat. As he crossed the room, I noticed that his hands were shaking, and suddenly I was afraid—afraid of whatever bad news my father must be about to tell me, afraid of some unimaginable force that suddenly hung over my father’s head and aged him so that he was nearly unrecognizable to me. Something terribly wrong suffocated him, and he took what felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.

“What would you do if you made a promise to keep someone safe but… but you knew it might not end well? Would you keep your promise, even if it hurt you in the end?”

I looked up at my father’s eyes and a lump formed in my throat. He looked so tired—not the kind of tired from a long day of work, but it was as if every restless night he had ever had suddenly caught up to him. I had never seen my father look so small. Despite his age, he seemed frail and weak, and I was scared to hug him or even grasp his hand out of fear that he might crumble away. 

My thoughts subsided at the sound of a raven outside my window. I blinked away the tears that welled in my eyes and attempted to form an honest response. “I… I don’t know. I think, if it really mattered, and if I knew it was for something greater than me… I would keep my promise.”

“Even if it hurts?”

“Especially if it hurts,” I croaked. The raven outside squawked again before the steady beat of wings came and went.

Stanley nodded, his eyes slightly red, and looked down at the floor. “Since when did you become so wise, huh?” He chuckled humorlessly, and I took this opportunity to brush my hand against his arm. “Dad?” He hummed back in acknowledgement. “Whatever this is… Whatever it is that you need to do… Swear that you’ll be safe. Swear that you’ll come back home in one piece. For mom and I. Please.” A tear rolled down my cheek, and in a split second I was crying in my father’s arms as he held me tight. “I promise, little dove. I promise.”

As I wept, my anxieties crept up in the back of my mind with the dreaded thought that, for some unforeseen reason, this could be the last time I ever saw my father again. I banished the feeling and hugged him tighter.

»»———————————————««

When I was much younger, I was prone to having nightmares and anxiety attacks as a result of my lucid dreaming. I would wake up in the middle of the night sobbing (and sometimes screaming) from the twisted images that plagued my subconscious. Oftentimes I would lay there, in a state of sleep paralysis, watching shadows twist and curl around me, suffocating me, until my father finally came rushing in, worried green eyes looking over me to assure that I wasn’t injured. He would scoop me up in his arms and rock me back and forth until I had calmed down, whispering affirmations into my ear until I fell back asleep. Occasionally, he would bring me back to my parent’s shared bedroom, so I could rest peacefully within their reach. On especially bad nights—ones in which I couldn’t bring my eyes to shut for more than a second—he would stay awake with me until daylight shone through the window. All through those sleepless nights, he would carry me around the house while he made a cup of coffee, solely because I would begin to weep if he was out of my sight. 

The nightmares abruptly stopped when I turned seven years old, and would only pop up every so often in the decade since, though to a much less dire scale. Those instances were few and far between, with no recollection of the horrors I had dreamt, so I never brought them up. Something must have broken the dam within me, because the night my father left, I had the worst nightmare in all my history. 

While the memories of my previous experiences had never lingered for very long, this one latched on to my brain and snuck into my heart, where it left behind a dark mist of insecurity and brought forth the fears I buried deep within me. I was at home in the nightmare—or, more accurately, a place that looked like my home, but lacked the warmth of it. It was completely silent, and not even the sound of my footsteps resonated off the floorboards. I carried myself towards the winding staircase of my home, trailing my fingers against the rail as I ascended. I lingered on the top step as an unsettling feeling chilled my spine, but an invisible force shoved me forward to the restroom. The door was shut, but the light remained on, and now I heard what sounded like the faucet dripping. I reached the door, clasping the knob in my hand and turning it until the door clicked open. It swung back with a drawn out creak that one can only recognize from horror movies, but when I first looked up, there was nothing for me to see. I turned my head to the side and looked into the mirror, finding a reflection of myself. My eyes traveled down, and I noticed a set of clothes neatly folded on the counter, and my father’s watch ticking away on top of the stack. I reached out to inspect it, as I often did when I saw it, but the moment I touched it, the ticking stopped. The faucet seemed to grow louder, and the force in my subconscious urged me to turn towards the bathtub. The curtain was pulled back halfway and my stomach turned to ice at the sight of a hand dangling over the rim of the tub. I noticed a sliver of deep red had trailed down the arm to the tips of the fingers, and the dripping was not from the faucet, but the blood that trickled into a puddle on the tiled bathroom floor. 

I didn't want to look any longer, but my subconscious had a vice-like grip on me, and I padded forward to see inside the bathtub until I was struck by a thick wave of nausea. There, soaking in a crimson pool of his own blood, was my father. His head was propped against the wall, with empty eyes that were so unlike the bright forest green I once recognized them to be. His mouth hung open as if he had been trying to speak before he drew out his last breath—was he suffocated by silence as I had been?—and on the wall, in shaky writing, was the word IT, the same awful shade of red as the blood of my father. I tried to cry, scream, speak, move, _ anything _, but I was paralyzed. The only option I had was to look at the lifeless body in the bath as I wished for this nightmare to end. 

Suddenly, the room went pitch black. I was in my bed, but I still couldn’t move, despite my attempts. A tall shadow in the corner loomed over me in the darkness, as if waiting for me to rise up. It spoke to me in a language I could not understand nor recognize as any earthly tongue, until its gloved hand lifted slowly, a balloon floating dutifully out of the darkness. It was the very same shade of red as that in the bath, and I finally broke past the silence to let out a pained sob as the balloon popped, spraying me with a thick, gooey layer of the fluid. 

I awoke with a gasp, immediately clasping my hands over my mouth as the urge to vomit overtook me. I was sweating buckets, so I tore away my bedsheets and brought my knees to my chest before I began frantically wiping away at my skin, the feeling of fresh blood somehow on me, and I wept for so long that I felt lightheaded. I contemplated running to my mom’s room to be by her side for the night, but I felt guilty at the possibility of waking her or even catching the scent of my father on his pillow. Instead, I lay rocking back and forth in my bed, trying to breathe steadily, and wishing my dad had been home.

»»———————————————««

My father had been through hell and back in those couple of days he was gone, it seemed, but from the looks of things he had come out of it stronger than ever. He was smiling—_ really _ smiling—despite the scars that he now wore. When Stanley first arrived home from his trip to Derry, his hometown, I couldn’t stand to see him. My father, scarred up along his usually perfect skin, speckled with dry blood that infused itself into the fabric of his shirt. I hid in my room with the door shut as I pressed my body to the door like a barricade. As I sank to the floor, breathing heavily, I listened to my parents’ conversation. 

“I’m fine, Patty, really! It’s nothing to worry about!”

“You’re gone for two days and you come home bruised and bloody, Stanley, of course I’m going to worry!”

“Please, babylove—”

“Don’t. I need you to understand. You have to understand that I’m scared, Stan. Please,” my mother begged, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the way her voice broke, “you have to help me make sense of this.”

Stanley said nothing. Even though I couldn’t see him, I imagined he was looking at the tiled floor with watery eyes and a heavy heart. I imagined he must be fiddling with the band of his watch, then the wedding ring on his finger, then the friendship bracelet I gave him when I was nine years old that he never bothered to take off. I imagined these motions in that order specifically, because I knew my father’s reactions better than I knew myself—although, at the moment, I don’t think I knew him at all. 

I heard my mother sigh and her voice became muffled as she tugged him close to her. “I worried about you. Your_ daughter _ worried about you. She couldn’t stop going on about how something felt off about that trip and now…” My mother wept in his arms. “Now I’m so confused. I just need answers. _ We _ need answers.” My father said something that I couldn’t make out through the door. The house became quiet. I slowly crept towards my bed, where I could bury myself under the sheets, and I cried until I fell asleep.

It was some hours later that a gentle hand began running through my hair. I didn't recognize much else besides that for a while — all I knew was the tender touch that suspended me in a state of being half awake, half asleep. The more persistent the touch became, however, the more aware I became of my surroundings. I was in my bedroom, mom was in the kitchen, I cried myself to sleep, dad came home—

“Daddy?” I said, suddenly feeling like a child that fell asleep on a car ride and had to be carried back home. The hand hesitated for a second, then continued on at a steady pace. “It’s me, little dove.” My dad spoke in a whisper, as though his presence was a secret, and I had to focus to be sure it was his voice I heard and not a figment of my imagination. “I missed you,” I mumbled. “Don’t leave again.” 

“I won’t.” He sounded sure of himself, which was hard to say about my dad, but I was satisfied with his response. I turned over to face him, rubbing at my eyes to cast away my tiredness. “What happened when you left?” He froze up, and I felt guilty for asking so bluntly, so I felt for his hand and held it. The bracelet was on that wrist; I tugged on it a bit, my way of silently saying “it’s okay, you don’t need to answer,” but my dad gazed down at me with a look of contemplation.

“I fought an evil alien clown that tried to kill me and my friends 27 years ago,” he deadpanned. It was absurd, but in my somewhat hazy state, I could only say “Really?” and listen to my dad laugh at my reaction. Hearing him laugh put me in a peaceful mood, and I drifted back into my slumber as he kissed my head with “Sweet dreams, little dove,” on his lips.

»»———————————————««

It seemed that my father was most in his element now that he had been reunited with his childhood friends. A weight he had not noticed before was lifted from his shoulders, and now he laughed and smiled and joked around with his friends as if they were all still young and clueless. I helped my mom in the kitchen while I peeked out the window to watch the antics of the self proclaimed Loser’s Club in the backyard. I saw what seemed to be a robin flying overhead, and made a mental note to tell my dad about it once we had the time. 

My mother and I washed up then proceeded to carry plates of food outside to everyone. “Hey, thanks kiddo!” said a man with glasses, who insisted I call him my “Uncle Richie”. 

“Kiddo? What are you, a grandpa?” asked a shorter man.

“Oh shut up Eds, you already know I’m your daddy.”

“Shut up, dude, since when?”

“Since I fucked your mom.”

“Hey. Shut up, guys,” my dad said, walking over with a plate in his hand. “My daughter doesn’t need to hear whatever it is you have to say.”

“Yeah, Richie, shut up.” 

“No _ you— _” 

They continued bickering as I handed a plate to a pretty woman named Beverly and her fiancé, Ben. “Thank you, honey,” she said, a gentle smile on her face. “How’s your dad doing?” I smiled back at her and glanced over my shoulder to see my dad with his head thrown back in laughter. “Good,” I told her, “he’s doing really good.”

“That’s nice to hear,” said Ben, throwing a sincere look towards me and my father. “You’re just like him, I think. Maybe not as sarcastic as him, though,” he pondered aloud.

“No, you haven’t heard some of the things I’ve said,” I explained. “Our only difference is that I’m cooler than him.” The pair laughed as I said this, then thanked me again before settling down to eat. I took up my own plate and sat with everyone outside, discussing school and trips I’ve taken with Mike, books and the writing I’ve done with Bill, and the cat I’ve been trying to convince my parents to let me have with Eddie. As they left, I hugged each of them, thanked them for visiting, and said goodbye as I addressed them all as “aunt” or “uncle”. Stan, Patty, and I all stood in the doorway waving at them until every car in the driveway had left our sight. My mother was tired and slept soon after the visit had concluded, but my dad and I stayed up a while longer, cleaning up leftover trash (mainly from Uncle Richie, as my father had concluded) until we could finally stand outside in peace. 

As the cool breeze jostled our hair, I looked up at my dad. The setting sun caused him to glow in the light, a halo surrounding his silhouette. He was admiring the tree in our backyard, a peaceful look adorning his features. I felt a tug in my heart at the sight of my father, as I was overcome with a feeling of familial love and gratitude for the man who raised me. I thought of a conversation that I had with him a few years ago, in which he told me about the relationship he had with his father. He described the pressure my grandfather pushed on him, the ever-so-high expectations that were required of him. “I never want to be that kind of man,” he told me. “I will never put you through the strain he put on me. You shouldn’t have to grow up so fast at such a young age. You deserve a childhood.”

I swallowed down the ache in my throat and stood on my toes, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. It reminded me of when I was six and much too short to reach him, so I would be on my tiptoes and he would crouch down as we met in the middle to kiss each other’s cheeks; now, he didn’t have to crouch down to meet me. My father looked back at me with watery, affectionate eyes, and pulled me into a hug. “I love you, little dove. I’m sorry I ever left.”

I felt safe here with my dad, outside in the autumn with the sun settling down to rest, the tree in the backyard swaying in the wind. I felt safe knowing he was here to protect me and guide me without judgement. To be gifted with even half of his compassion was good enough for me; to have even an ounce of his love and respect was more than I deserved. But as he held me tight, I could see now that my father wasn’t one for simply doing the bare minimum — when he loved someone, he loved them fully and unconditionally; when he cared for someone, he gave them every moment of his time and strength; and when he was at peace, he called on mother nature for her mercy, and she returned the favor. 

A pair of robins flew overhead as I stayed in my father’s arms for as long as the universe would allow.


End file.
